It’s been ten years since Lyle Lovett’s last album, 2012’s Release Me, and that record was a contractual obligation featuring only two Lovett originals among a slew of covers. Before that came another cover-heavy release, Natural Forces in 2009.
So it has really been 15 years, looking back to 2007’s It’s Not Big It’s Large, since Lovett gave us an album featuring mostly his own compositions.
A couple of weeks ago we received our first taste of Beyoncé’s first solo studio album since 2016’s Lemonade. ‘Break My Soul’ is the lead single of Renaissance, a project due on July 29 that Queen Bey calls her “most ambitious musical project to date.”
Lemonade was both a groundbreaking release — a complete visual album recorded in secret and dropped with no advance notice — and a phenomenal piece of music. It’s a tough act to follow, especially after half a decade. I eagerly anticipate the new directions Beyoncé will no doubt take on Renaissance.
Our final performer inductee into the 2014 class of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is a singer-songwriter who would have made it in much sooner if his music was the only consideration.
Eligible for induction since 1992, Cat Stevens waited until 2006 to first appear on a ballot, then had a second chance in 2014, when he finally made it in.
Here’s a song from Satisfied, the 2009 debut solo album by my second favorite Pistol Annie, Ashley Monroe.
I first discovered Monroe through her involvement in the Annies, a trio that also includes Angaleena Presley and my beloved Miranda Lambert. I picked up Monroe’s second and third albums, both excellent, before looping back around to this one.
‘Men and Women’ is the final track on INXS’ 1992 album Welcome to Wherever You Are. This was the band’s fifth straight Platinum album in the United States (and their last).
The album fared a little bit worse in the band’s native Australia, where it achieved Gold status and broke a streak of five straight Platinum albums there.
Meet Me In Montauk 